The P12Life - Travel and Gamble: Santiago, Chile Feb 27th

Travelling: I took a short, few hour bus ride over from Vina del Mar. It was a relaxing, quick ride.

Playing around with shade effects on the ride

Lol airport seats on my way flying out, I dove on them to nap for a little

Culture/Stuff about there: Santiago is the capital of Chile. It is a nice sized city with lots of their business culture here. Most people don't realize that most of the southern part of Chile is inhabited, and is Patagonia, a beautiful place to trek for a week or two. I enjoyed it here, the night life was okay, and the view of the Andes Mountains all around you make it an amazingly beautiful sight to see all the time. They also love their ice cream.

Random downtown business building

My good friend Alejandra took me for ice cream and proceeded to complain that I was not allowed to have a chocolate/vanilla cone when they had over 50 flavors. Fair enough, thanks again!

Language: Spanish, besides Brazil and some of the French owned countries up North, everywhere in South America speaks Spanish. It does change from location to location, just like how people speak differently in California than New York. In Chile, it was the most difficult for sure, people joke that you need to speak Chileano. The pace of their speaking here is a much quicker and more difficult to understand Spanish. It was nice to be able to try and recall some Spanish from high school, and attempt to start learning again. I did a little Rosetta Stone here, but knowing the key verbs is crucial to get points across, even if they are not used correctly.

Safety: I felt safe here as I have on most of my travels, I did not see anything suspicious going on.

Transportation: Car is the main means of transportation here, with some bikes and such. It is much like a US city with cars and the subway, and taxis.

Population: ~5,000,000 people

Currency: Chilean Peso, currently 1USD = 506 CLP

Place Stayed at: Again, it has been so long that I forget the name of the hostel, nothing to write home about though so no big deal. I met some cool people at it though, and I at least have a few pictures of this one.

I remember it mainly as the pink hostel

Chillin with my peeps

Food: Nothing special stood out to me as far as food went, not the worst, not the best, and about 1/2-1/3 of the US prices I am used to spending, but not as good of quality.

Beers/Drinks: None of the beers seemed like nationally popular beers, and the main drink was pisco, which was a grape berry pisco, lemon, and sugar. It was not my cup of tea so I didn't have too much of it, but had to try it. I enjoyed it, but too sweet for me.

Whack, this is what you come to love about South America, chillin on the streets walking around with drinks

Yeah, i'll indulge in $2-$5 bottles of wine

Entertainment: The nightlife was decent, the city view from the mountain top was nice to see. There did not seem anything too crazy here though.

I had to stop about ten times on my ride up, I had a one speed bike and it took me 2 hours to the top

Almost there...

It took me 3 minutes to get down at sunset...

but the views when I reached the top were worth the effort

Big shopping mall they had

Internet: My internet at the hostel way okay, I cannot comment on a set up home internet connection though.

Sites to see/Things to do: Take the trolley to the top of the mountain to view the city, do not bike, IT TOOK ME 2 hours, and I almost died. Also, walk around and take in the beautiful setting of the Andes Mountains enclosing you.

Romantic spot to watch this display with a loved one, didn't have a loved one, and took the picture on an awful setting

Recommendation: Come visit for a few days on your way to the Atacama Desert on your way up North, or on your way down to Patagonia. I also recommend renting a bike for like $5-10 and riding around the city for the day

This is the beginning of Rick and I touring the city, we soon got told after a bunch of stairs that it's really frowned upon to have shirts off in public here. Jersey problems I guess, it was hot as could be though.